


Archenemies

by 221b_hound



Category: Sherlock (TV), The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (1984)
Genre: First Kiss, Gen, Holmes Brothers, The Banzai Institute, The Hong Kong Cavaliers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 05:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6892441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John finds out the real reason that Sherlock and Mycroft are archenemies. He finds out other important things, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Archenemies

**Author's Note:**

> I have just learned [this news](http://io9.gizmodo.com/kevin-smith-is-making-an-adventures-of-buckaroo-banzai-1776882034) and hyperventilated with excitement at Atlin Merrick. I blurted out a sudden and immediate headcanon and she said WRITE IT DOWN, so you're getting it typed pretty much straight into the box. With extra headcanons as they occur to me.

John returns to the flat one day and passes Mycroft on the stairs. Mycroft is lost in thought, but he nods briefly to John. Then he stops. He says, "You've heard of the Banzai Institute, haven't you?"

John frowns at him, because, who _hasn't_? In fact, he's surprised Mycroft doesn't know that...

John decides not to even think it, because Mycroft's even worse (or better) than Sherlock at winkling out secrets from a twitch of the eyebrow and a callus on his left thumb or whatever. Mycroft doesn't say anything further anyway, so John keeps on up the stairs.

Sherlock is thrumming like an overwound violin string when John gets inside. He is muttering feverishly to himself. John raises an eyebrow at him and Sherlock scowls.

"Moriarty worked for Hanoi Xan. I should have known."

Sherlock stalks to the window and glares down at the black car parked below. "You smug bastard!" he mutters angrily.

John joins Sherlock at the window, and they watch Mycroft's black sedan pull away from Baker Street. The British Government isn't driving of course. He's in the back seat with three phones, two iPads and a computer, shooting messages and emails and files and what have you back and forth across secure channels to do the things he does.

"Mind telling me what that was all about? Mycroft mentioned the Banzai Institute. What've Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers got to do with Moriarty?"

Sherlock, still glaring after the sedan's tail lights, huffs. "James Moriarty was an operative of Hanoi Xan's."

John knows that Hanoi Xan is Buckaroo Banzai's archenemy, but not in the way Mycroft referred to himself as Sherlock's archenemy. When John told Sherlock that normal people didn't have archenemies, he didn't mean Hanoi Xan. Everyone knows that the Hong Kong Cavaliers are not normal people. They are geniuses who do amazing things with science, play music for relaxation and discuss philosophy over breakfast. They are, in fact, exactly Sherlock's kind of people, John would have thought. He wonders why Sherlock has never talked about them. Has, indeed, shut down any conversation about them if they are ever mentioned.

Sherlock's reply is an answer but not really, you know, an answer.

"And why did Mycroft feel the need to come and tell you this now?"

"I've been made an offer," admits Sherlock.

"An offer."

The sedan disappears and Sherlock turns from the window. "From the Banzai Institute."

Sherlock is looking at his feet. At his hands. At the wall. But not at John.

John is silent for a long moment.

"Buckaroo has invited you to join the Banzai Institute," he says.

"The message is from Rawhide," corrects Sherlock, naming Buckaroo's right hand man, "But essentially, yes."

"And the Hong Kong Cavaliers?"

"Perhaps. After an internship. But I have the pre-requisites. An area of expertise, an instrument, a... temperament."

John is silent for much longer. When he was young, it was a dream of his to join the Hong Kong Cavaliers. To join them on an adventure, perhaps. He was a Blue Blaze Irregular for most of his life, until he was wounded. Code name: Three Continents. It was the thing he hopes Mycroft doesn't know.

Now here is Sherlock being made the offer of a lifetime. And John finds he isn't envious. He is thrilled for Sherlock to be joining that elite group of thinkers and musicians. Thrilled and proud that his friend will be a central, significant part of bringing down that cold, evil schemer at the centre of all the world's most vicious, cruel and cunning villainy.

No, John 'Three Continents' Watson isn't envious. But he is... selfishly sad. Sherlock will leave, as he should, and John - who is pretty damned good but not Banzai Institute good - will have to say goodbye to his best friend, the heart and soul of him, the man who saved him when he'd thought all the best of himself was lost.

 _Well soldier_ , he thinks grimly to himself, _suck it up and be glad for him. Do not rain on his ticker tape parade._

"So," John swallows and tries to banish the tightening in this throat. "When. When do you. Ah. Go?"

Sherlock peers at him. Frowns. Tilts his head to scrutinise John closely. John's chin jerks up and he is standing firmly upright without fully realising he's gone into parade rest. His face is as blank as he can make it.

"Go?" asks Sherlock.

"It's an incredible opportunity," says John steadily, "There are people who'd cut off their right arm for a chance to join the Institute."

"Not everyone," says Sherlock, and there's the kind of glint in his eye he gets when he's in a filthy mood with Mycroft.

John's brows draw together in a question and Sherlock's mouth goes into a moue (John tries not to think how he's going to miss that face, that mouth, the myriad of expressions on Sherlock's incredible face).

"Mycroft turned them down. Fifteen years ago."

"He _what_?" This, to John, is unfathomable.

"He told them he didn't have time for childish games. That he had serious work to do and had no intention of, in his words, swanning around Himalayan mountaintops with gunslingers, saxophonists and particle physicists playing at Heroes and Villains when there were countries to run."

John blinks, unable to comprehend the mind of a man who could say such a thing.

"Of course they asked _him_ ," says Sherlock bitterly, "That pompous paragon of tedium, laziness, bureacracy and beadledom. And he turned them down. The single most brilliant, effective, astonishing group of minds of our time. And he accused them of playing _games_. You have always wondered how my brother and I came to this pass. There you have it. Right there."

John's eyes widen because of course he hears the subtext. They asked Mycroft Holmes. They did _not_ ask Sherlock. Not fifteen years ago.

"Well," says John, "They're asking you now."

"They can whistle for it," snarls Sherlock.

"Don't be ridiculous," snaps John in reply, "Are you going to turn this incredible opportunity down for the sake of... what?"

"Too little, too late, John."

"So they offered what you desperately wanted to Mycroft and he turned it down..."

"Like the lazy arse he was and is."

"That's no reason to throw this away, to take some petty revenge for the Institute overlooking you as a teenager. You can be an idiot of a genius, but even you can't be that self-sabotaging."

"Is that what you think this is?"

"I know you'd suit the Hong Kong Cavaliers down to the ground. With everything.... everthing you have and are. You'll be amazing. You'll make them more brilliant. Even as an intern. You'll be... you'll..."

He falters at the look Sherlock is giving him. Piercing and puzzled and... a little hurt?

"You want me to go?"

"No. Yes. I mean yes. You have to go. I'll miss you. Of course I'll miss you. I'll..." He presses his lips on a repetition because that's stupid. Sherlock hates repetition, and anyway, his voice is going strange and it'll be a dead giveaway, how much he'll miss him. "It's not about me. I'll be fine. You can't give this up for petty reasons, Sherlock."

"I'm not giving it up for petty reasons," says Sherlock slowly. He is looking at John like he's looking right through him. He is, John knows, examining the dilation of John's eyes and the pace of his breathing and the tick of his pulse as it throbs in his neck, and he knows that Sherlock knows that what John will feel when he goes is more than just _missing him_.

"Oh John," says Sherlock fondly, and he smiles.

John blinks. His heart does a funny thing but he doesn't quite know what. He doesn't quite know what is happening, except that there's a steady thrum of _he's staying, he's staying here, he's staying here with me_ , and he feels bad about it, but also so, so hopeful.

 "I don't need the Banzai Institute," says Sherlock softly. "I made my own place. I made my own job. I made my own... Cavaliers. I don't need them."

"Oh." The syllable is faint. John doesn't quite comprehend yet. Or the thinks he _might_...

"I'm a consulting detective," says Sherlock with a grin and a twinkle in his eye, "The only one in the world. And I have my Rawhide, my Reno, and my Perfect Tommy right here."

Rawhide is Buckaroo's right hand man, Reno Nevada the Cavaliers' biographer, and Perfect Tommy is... well. Perfect.

John blinks.

"You could be my Peggy as well, if you like."

John's eyes open wider.

"Or not. As you like." Sherlock goes back to examining his knuckles.

John steps towards him. "Didn't end well with Peggy Priddy," he says, "Hanoi Xan murdered her on their wedding day."

"There is some debate about that, as I recall," says Sherlock, meeting John's eyes. "But all right then. Not Peggy. Some other name. Your own name."

"I was a Blue Blaze Irregular," admits John. "Code name, Three Continents. Because..."

"Your family moved so often. Asia. Europe. Australia, briefly. Yes." Sherlock seems to feel something needs to be offered in reply. "Mine was Corsair."

John grins. "Corsair. I like that." He feels like he may not ever stop smiling. He feels like something tight has come loose in his chest, something has become unbolted and free. "But you want me to be..."

"Yes.

"The... 221b Institute. The Baker Street Cavaliers. You and me."

Sherlock's reply is to kiss John, and John accepts the commission by returning the kiss. And they stand in the middle of 221b Baker Street for the longest time, making their own music, being their own kind of genius.

There'll be times ahead when they will join forces with Buckaroo and his team against the World Crime League; and maybe against stranger foes from the Eighth Dimension. But that is then, and this is now, and wherever they go, Sherlock and John, _there they are_.

 


End file.
